Low UPF diet - to think the experts weren’t lying?

[AusBoundDD]

Nearly 6 months ago I made it my New Year’s resolution to start eating a low UPF diet in hopes of losing some weight for a once in a lifetime trip, alongside just being healthier in general. Honestly it has been life changing! I’ve lost nearly 10kg without really having to think about it - no restricting or anything like that and in general I just feel so much better. UPFs like crisps, ready meals, even basic supermarket bread don’t feel like ‘real’ food anymore and no longer appeal. On the occasion that I do choose to eat something UPF (which for me is no big deal, im not strict!) it just isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be. I’d choose some sourdough over a loaf of Hovis any day when previously I used to hate it! I feel much fuller + satisfied for longer and rarely get the urge to snack.

Obviously it has its downsides - much less convenience food so cooking takes longer (PITA when doing lunch/dinner prep after a long day at work!), ingredients are more expensive so my shopping bill has gone up but all in all it’s a decision I don’t regret. Honestly I think that this way of eating should be the future.

Anyone else feel this way?

You're more likely to have an unhealthy, incapacitated old age if you don't eat properly though. The conversation nowadays seems to be about how many healthy years you will live, rather than years per se.

When I cut back on UPFs in favour of healthier options I also pretty much gave up on bread and cut way back on starchy carbs. That has made life much easier. A big plate of proteins and veg seems filling enough.

I might have the occasional small serving of rice or pasta if I'm out and I enjoy a roast potato with a Sunday lunch but OTW I don't miss them or seem to need them.

That being said, on holiday last month I twice had a slice of granary toast with butter and peanut butter with my breakfast and it was delicious.

I do occasionally have gluten free pasta though if I fancy it. Especially as it can be bought in shops for pretty cheap rather than having to get a prescription when I was diagnosed 19 years ago!

You could make a sponge pudding and have it with cream? If you make a large one, it will be ok for a few days worth.

OP you are not wrong. I'm another person who lost 3 stone in my late fifties by looking after my gut biome (which involves getting rid of UPFs amongst other things). It's stayed off (65 now), quite easily, even on holiday. I have the weight and measurements I had when I was a teenager/in my twenties - much sadder boobs though, hey ho. I do exercise as well but that can only do so much. I really swear by looking after your gut biome.

It worries me that you think the experts were lying. About basic nutrition 😲In general experts don't lie, they have checks and balances that prevent them from doing that. There's been a brilliant shift in rhetoric to cast doubt on experts, from people whose interests are served by the population being credulous about everything except what's told to us by experts. That's how we're politically in the state we're in.

Anyway YANBU of course food is better than semi-food or non-food.

The podcast I linked to earlier in the thread had an interesting discussion around a scale (NOVA) that is being adopted to classify foods and help people understand what is UPF. This is an excerpt using an apple as an example:

“Class 1 on the NOVA system would be an apple.

Class 2 on the NOVA system would be apple slices. Class 3 on the NOVA system would be apple sauce, unsweetened. Class 4 on the NOVA system would be an apple pie.

There you go. It turns out that only the class 4 foods are associated with chronic disease.

So we can have minimally processed foods that are done to make our life easier a little bit, or but it's when it goes to that extreme where it's actually bears no resemblance to actually what actually came out of the ground in the first place.

That's right. And so what is different about that apple pie versus the apple? And the answer is the addition of sugar and the removal of fiber”

@Pickingmyselfup You have to work on the sugar addiction :)

It takes time and needs determination but it does work.

I used to have 1 teaspoon of sugar in tea or coffee.

I was partly 'shamed' when I met DH as no one in the social group we were in took sugar. (We were all late 20s at the time.)

I reduced to half a teaspoon, then a quarter, then none.

This took about a month.

The nutritional advice is that adults should not consume more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day- that's 30gms. That includes 'hidden' sugar in prepared foods, drinks, sauces (eg ketchup), jams, and of course biscuits, confectionary etc.

You will eventually re-educate your taste buds when something sweet is unpleasant. (If I make a cake now and then I reduce the sugar by a third to half, depending on the recipe because otherwise it's too sweet.)

I think you need to focus not on calories but on the quality of what you eat.
To be honest, 2 teaspoons of sugar a day is better than using artificial sweeteners, which still give sugar spikes and long term will bugger up your pancreas and can cause diabetes.

The downside of sugar is not weight gain, but metabolic syndrome. The pancreas eventually gives up after having to process sugar and that sugar ends up not being metabolised and causes raised blood sugar- = diabetes.

Sorry for the lecturing tone, but it's important to understand what can happen.

@CaveMum a whole apple and an apple sliced up are no different! How can they be?

I think it might be something I’d do once I retire. I only eat bread once a week at most at the moment and feel Better for it but thanks for the info. It’s percolating in my brain!

I think it means sliced apple bought from
a shop in a packet, ie it has something on it to stop it going brown etc?

Why would the experts have lied? If you look on an item’s ingredients list and see 20 ingredients you’ve never heard of that’s clearly not to improve nutrition - it’s purely to make it taste better. Often compulsively so.

For those saying it’s obvious UPFs are bad I don’t think that fact was super clear to everyone believe it or not

I agree, especially as lots is marketed as healthy, low fat, .... without the right education, healthy food & cooking it's a difficult area to negotiate.

Obviously it has its downsides - much less convenience food so cooking takes longer (PITA when doing lunch/dinner prep after a long day at work!), ingredients are more expensive so my shopping bill has gone up but all in all it’s a decision I don’t regret

I disagree! But we eat mainly vegan/ vegetarian with meat/ fish 1-2 weekly.

I also use batch cooking for convenience. I usually have 3-4 ready meals in the freezer. I've made my own Baked Beans as DC likes them... instead of opening a can all they have to do is hit the defrost button on the microwave!

As for cost, I think if you eat more fibre, your portions should be smaller. Bulk buying things like couscous, rice and pulses keeps the cost down. Same as buying seasonal fruit & vegetables or frozen. Meat is expensive and can be easily reduced. I can even afford to get organic meat & pulses at a push. These are all things that helped me reduced my food bill without compromising on taste or quality.

Lots of people saying it's obvious to avoid UPFs. Maybe so. And yet 80% of food in UK supermarkets is UPF. People ARE eating a huge amount of it. Even if it's been obvious to you for decades it's not to many people.

Also regarding 'no evidence of direct harm from UPFs.' People who eat lots of UPF are heavier when controlled for other things. Why? Because the food is designed not to satiate and keep you wanting more. So people overeat all the high transfat, highsalt, high sugar foods and put on weight and have lota of other aasociated health problems. That's the harm!

Food companies don't even disguise the fact they design the food this way: Once you pop you can't stop?!

Maybe there was some awareness of healthy eating in 70/80's but not to this extent. Also the food is designed to override any sensibility of it being unhealthy. It's addictive. So even if you know it's bad for you it's really hard to stop eating it. People are getting heavier and heavier because they are eating so many of these foods (not really their fault, the foods are designed to make us do this). Legislative change is needed ASAP.

Oh and often the food is actively marketed to help you lose weight. People are being lied to. It's the tobacco scandal all over again. It has to stop

Good for you.

Any other pearls of wisdom? Walking is better than driving? Water is better than vodka?

And yet 80% of food in UK supermarkets is UPF.

Where did you get that number @lastminutelily ?

Despite saying I try to cut down on upfs I eat chocolate every day!
I love sweet stuff but apart from chocolate I eat more home made cakes/cookies etc than shop bought (not every day)

But those saying well duh, it's common sense why did you not know this etc, pp are right, lots of advertising campaigns push processed food as healthy, low fat etc. Anyone remember the special K ads, in the 90s? Even recently I tried the NHS food scanner app. It's a very blunt tool, simply measuring calories (possibly fat I can't remember) and sugar. When I scanned a bar of chocolate , the "healthy" alternative was a processed diet or low calorie cereal bar with artificial sweetness. Diet coke (which I do drink but know is one of my worst upf choices) was applauded as a good choice!

I'd say probably 75% of my diet is non upf but I eat chocolate, wraps, shop bought mayo, ketchup, pesto, teriyaki sauce etc I had an eating disorder for 7 years in my teens/early 20s and must have wasted months of my life reading labels, I don't want to go back to that again, I'm OK if I use a few tsp of shop bought mayo in a sandwich.

I'm not convinced it is more expensive or more difficult.

I've just been to Lidl and bought porridge oats, bananas, big tub of Greek yogurt, raspberries, strawberries, purple sprouting broccoli, 12 eggs and a loaf of (admitedly processed) wholemeal seeded bread. I have not scrimped at all, lots of luxuries there, cheaper fruit and veg are available, and it cost less than £12. With the addition of some milk and a little bit of butter, that will feed me well for a couple of days at least, but there'll be eggs, porridge, bread and broccoli left over the be used on subsequent days. Porridge takes no time to make and I'll have poached eggs with broccoli one evening and a brocolli fritata another, both as quick as heating a ready meal.

What processed food are you buying that's cheaper?

Exactly!

You do you, but making bad health choices doesn’t mean you’re absolutely fine until you instantly die, it usually means years of issues and then dying. If it were always the former then of course no-one would care.

(“eating better is more expensive” is also categorically untrue, btw)

The whole Apple is, as its grown on the tree.

A sliced Apple -in a bag- is minimal processed. You slice it, take away the core and add an acid to stop it going brown in the case of the bagged Apple.

For Apple sauce, you slice it, take away the core and skin and then cook it often adding sugar, water and an acid.

The cake is self explanatory.

Well for now I'll continue with them, there is a risk to everything I do in life. Everytime I get in the car I can crash and die, break my leg on a pot hole when out running.

Those are called 'accidents'. And unpredictable.

Putting sweetener or sugar in your coffee is something you control. It's a choice you're making daily.

Hardly the same. But a bit like a smoker saying they know the risks, but they'll carry on.

Please can you share you low UPF cake recipe/s?